Hitori: Alone with Family
by slack-jawed cheese hugger
Summary: When Hitori's puppet Dan isn't enough to stop the assassin from killing his siblings, he decides to get better... OC background


Hitori leaned up against the outside wall of the ninja academy, alone as usual

This is the background story for another OC of Nate's.

His name means 'alone' or 'by one's self'.

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Hitori leaned up against the outside wall of the ninja academy, alone as usual. He was a silent spectator upon a small skirmish that broke out between Naruto and the visiting Kankuro of the sand in the small courtyard. Kankuro handled his puppets so jerkily, and obviously had no connection with them. Hitori scowled throughout the match, smiling occasionally at the lag in the puppet's movements. Iruka eventually broke up the two, and our silent observer was somewhat disappointed that he could no longer appreciate his superiority to others regarding his jutsu.

At 8 years old, he witnessed the scuffle in the courtyard, and Hitori graduated that same year. That was the thing: the boy was an obvious genius. However, none of the teachers were drawn to the prodigy, for he was obviously disturbed from The Incident and preferred his isolation. This was far from true. The boy greatly wanted the company of others: it was simply that those whom he wanted specifically to be his friends were not currently available.

Hao was Hitori's elder brother, and Hitori loved him greatly. It was from Hao that he was taught how to use puppets, for his parents disapproved of the art. Hao would perform shows for his younger brother, and Hitori would laugh and clap, and would awkwardly maneuver his stuffed bear around with his own strings. It was clear (or at least it seemed to be) that Hao would be the last of the puppet masters in the family, for Hitori's skill was noticeably limited. However, Hao constantly would teach his brother how to pull and tweak the strings, and the stuffed bear became more and more adept at dancing across the floor.

Hitori also had a twin sister by the name of Tanaka. She was extremely overprotective, and became a medical-nin simply for the sake of making sure her brothers would, as she would say, "die after she did". Hao teased her relentlessly, but always made sure not to go too far so she would still fix him up when he pricked his finger on one of the poison traps he forgot his puppet even possessed. Most of all however, Tanaka worried about Hitori. Hao always told her that it was stupid for her to worry about him, but she did not know that Hitori was able to even make a puppet twitch, so she always looked over him to make sure she would be there when he got in too far over his head.

On a cold morning when Hitori was 7, a tall figure clad in the Akatsuki gown shattered the glass of a window and stepped into the house. The man walked down the hallway that branched off to the rooms of the three children, his soles making the sound a cat would make if it were in the same place with similar intentions. Suddenly, with a loud whirring of gears, a second figure lurched out at the intruder and metal blades caught the rays of light from the rising sun. Ban, the puppet that had leapt on to the Akatsuki, struggled to drive one of its poison tipped blades into the man, but was dispatched with sickeningly little effort. The cloaked figure turned to the boy that was attached to the crumpled pile of cogs and blades that was once a formidable weapon and laughed coolly. Hao burst into flames, and his screams echoed throughout the abode before he crumpled. His burnt hair stank horribly.

Tanaka was swept aside in a similar manner when she came to her brother's aid, and was held against the wall by a blazing hand until she was finally allowed to fall to the unforgiving tile. The murderous figure retreated in the same manner that he had come, and it was not until hours later that Hitori awoke to gaze upon the remains of his brother and sister.

Tears rolled down his cheeks as Hitori gathered up his siblings and well as Ban and threw them away. "I will make you again," he swore "you will be better." It was with these words that the boy set to work, not eating for days on end, to construct his siblings so he would be loved just as he was before.

The puppets were whittled from driftwood and were connected together at the joints by small metal rods to allow them to move fluidly. The eyes were dolls eyes, and each of the puppets wore a long, stitched smile that curled up at the ends. But the somewhat creepy, natural construction of the puppets was not what was so amazing about them. They were strangely more personal than other puppets in that they really seemed to reflect the people they were constructed after. The most popular idea among the students was that Hitori took the heart of his brother and sister and had sewn it into the wood with a hot needle, and one of his puppet strings kept it continuously beating.

This fact that his puppetry was his last resort to gain affection led Hitori to train himself mercilessly, and he soon became a formidable puppeteer. He used his puppets of his siblings to follow him and help him around the house, and he slept in between them at night. His skill soon grew to the point where the puppets moved without a single jerk or snag.

One day at the academy, an older ninja approached Hitori while he was reading a book and sneered down at him. "Hey loner, aren't you a little young to be playing with dolls?" The second the question was posed the older student flew back with a long gash running from his jaw to his right ear. Darega, the puppet in memoriam of Hao, was standing before him, a needle protruding from his right wrist. "It isn't poisoned seriously," muttered Hitori "go to the nurse so I don't have to see you if you do die." That student never even glanced at Hitori again.

During the Chuunin exams, Hitori was paired up against a ninja from the land of stone. The boy excelled in weaponry, and his ninjutsu allowed him to follow his weapons with a gust of chakra wind to increase their speed. Hitori immediately summoned Darega and Gakusee (the puppet in memoriam of Tanaka) and drew Gakusee out in front of him. A wave of kunai and shuriken flew toward Hitori, and the only movement the boy made was to extend the ring finger on his left hand. At this signal, his defensive sister puppet drew in all of the kunai as if she were a magnet, and the tiny knives drove themselves harmlessly into her wooden chest. Drawing in closer, the boy from the land of stone made quick slashes with katana at Hitori, but Gakusee stayed consistently in between the two and continued to brush the strokes of the weapon aside.

As the boy struggled for his sword to connect, Hitori used his right hand to draw Darega around behind his attacker, so as the boy was the center-point if a straight line were drawn to connect the two puppets. "Art of the puppet master: Poison Magnet Justu." Blades, dripping with poison, extruded from Darega, and the boy wheeled around to face the source of the danger. As he did this, Gakusee's magnet jutsu attracted Darega and the puppet shot towards his sister, ripping through the obstacle in between them with gleaming knives. The two puppets embraced each other. Hitori passed his exams immediately.

"I'm so sorry," Hitori told the boy from the land of the stone's mother. "You're a monster," she said. "It was an accident, I'm so sorry." The mother gave Hitori a scowl and walked away. "Monster," she muttered under her breath. Hitori never forgave himself, though he was able to save the boy's life by offering an antidote to his puppet's poison, his actions haunted him and the guilt followed him. This weighed on him just as much as his brother and sister's death.


End file.
